Cubs reaping Rizzo's returns

To begin with – well, to re-begin with, in the case of Anthony Rizzo – it wasn’t Petco Park. Everybody just assumed that the big ballyard was a big part of the problem, the reason he went from can’t-miss kid to can’t-even-make-contact kid.

“The ballpark could’ve been a tee-ball field,” said Rizzo, “and I wouldn’t have hit.”

In major league baseball, .141 indeed is about as close to not hitting at all as a player is allowed to get, and that was the batting average Rizzo took from his first major league experience into the offseason of 2011-12. When he came back to Petco Park for the first time on Monday, it was like Rizzo had transformed himself back into the phenom who’s not only a Rookie of the Year candidate, but already impressive enough to be considered a franchise player.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t work out (in San Diego),” said Rizzo, traded to the Cubs on Jan. 6. “They gave me the opportunity here. They went in a different direction. Everything happens for a reason. I’m happy for that.”

A .310 average, nine homers and 23 runs batted in 33 games makes for a happy young man. For purposes of comparison, too, Rizzo and the Padres couldn’t have come to San Diego at a better time.

Entering the three-game series at Petco Park, Rizzo had 129 at bats since his June 26 call-up by the Cubs, just one more than he had with the Padres last year. Besides an average 169 points higher, he’d hit nine homers to the one he had with San Diego, and he’d struck out just 17 times in 2012.

The latter category is the most glaring indicator that Rizzo is in a much better place as a hitter. He struck out 46 times with the Padres, or 36 percent of the time.

So, in retrospect, what was the problem here?

“Probably between my ears,” said Rizzo. “No, I don’t know. Just one of those things. I had to start hitting better, obviously, and make adjustments. It’s just this game. It can beat you up. When you try to get five hits in one at bat, it’s nearly impossible.”

Admittedly, as much as the Padres tried to keep San Diego from thinking that Rizzo was being called up from the minors to single-handedly hoist one of the major leagues’ worst offenses, he felt the pressure. For one thing, he’d been the bat sent by the Boston Red Sox in trade for no less than Adrian Gonzalez, and he’d already had a Triple-Crown-type year with Tucson when summoned to San Diego in early June. The Padres were getting nothing in the way of offense from their first basemen.

After hitting a triple in his major league debut, Rizzo bashed his first homer in his third game. The next day, the Padres went on the road and Rizzo’s average went straight into the dumper.

“It was really hard to watch it,” said Jed Hoyer, then the Padres general manager. “It wasn’t too long after that I felt I’d made a mistake. Things snowballed on him.

“I still regret bringing him up as early as I did. His numbers at Tucson, the production at first base, made it hard not to. But yeah, he was real young, just 21 years old.”

The common thread in all this, of course, is Hoyer. He was an assistant to Theo Epstein when the Red Sox drafted Rizzo, the GM who negotiated the trade that brought Rizzo to San Diego, and it wasn’t long after Hoyer left the Padres to re-join Epstein with the Cubs that Rizzo was sent to Chicago in the deal that brought pitcher Andrew Cashner to the Padres.

Months before either Rizzo or Hoyer went to Chicago, the two of them sat down with Padres manager Bud Black for what basically a post-season assessment and plan for the winter. The message was that Rizzo needed to work hard at both cutting down and leveling out his swing -- especially given the dimensions of Petco Park and the need for line-drive hitting – to alleviate his difficulty with major-league fastballs.

Rizzo began the 2012 season back in the PCL and got back to hammering PCL pitching. That the Cubs again got off to a brutal start had Hoyer hearing familiar calls for Rizzo’s promotion.

“This is déjà vu, the same thing,” said Hoyer. “Monster numbers in the minor leagues. Called up to save a team whose offense was slumping. I think it helped (Rizzo) having gone through it. He showed no anxiety. He came right up, batted third.

“I give him a lot of credit. He wanted to prove a lot of people wrong this time. But he didn’t try too hard to do it.”

Just one hit at a time. Likely forever, the wonder will be whether what’s happening with Rizzo now would ever have happened with him in San Diego, whether the reset button would only have worked with a change of scenery. Rebuffing any suggestion that his struggles last year had anything to do with the Padres or San Diego, he said he returns with a great appreciation for at least one aspect of Petco Park.

“The playing surface,” said Rizzo. “It’s unbelievable, the best I’ve ever played on. The whole park is beautiful.”